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Chapter Text

“Oh come on Jaime, you don’t know everything,” Elia goaded, as she rested her elbows on the table scattered with research papers and laptops. She cradled her chin in her hands and crooked her head innocently, shooting the golden boy sitting by her side half a smile, while also fondly rolling her eyes.

Jaime gave his best friend his most leonine grin and waved his hand in the air, “I don’t know everything, Elia. I just know everything about history.”

“Oh, big man,” Elia teased and tried to flick Jaime on the forehead, he dodged and swiped at her fingers, “So humble, the golden lion of Lannister.”

“Bullshit, bullshit,” Lyanna chanted, slamming her fists on the table. She then grabbed her large cup of coffee and belligerently drank a couple mouthfuls. Lyanna then shot her hand out, making everyone at the table wince for fear of having hot coffee splashed on them, but more importantly, on their laptops. However, Lyanna had managed to finish her drink in her volatile state and people and objects were mostly safe from harm, “Bull. Shit.”

“Lyanna, language,” Ned berated as he reached out to lower Lyanna’s shaking arm.

Lyanna rolled her eyes at her brother and then glared at her half finished grant application, “Okay dad.”

“Don’t call me—“

“Ned, she can swear if she wants to. She’s a fully grown woman,” Catelyn berated and patted her husband on the shoulder, “And Jaime, don’t boast. It’s unbecoming.”

“Come on Cat,” Jaime said as he leaned towards her, “You know it’s true. Ask me anything,” Jaime challenged as he then threw his feet onto the table and leaned back in his chair with his hands crossed behind his head. He shot her his most feline smirk.

Catelyn rolled her eyes at Jaime’s antics, “I’m not going to feed your ego, Jaime. The Gods only know that your head is big enough as it is.”

But, as always, before Catelyn could finish her sentence, the half asleep Mace had already decided that he was going to be funny. “Oh Jaime, regal us with how the Kingslayer became Goldenhand the Just.”

Elia groaned dramatically and then slammed her face on the table while making absurdly fake sobbing sounds, while Catelyn pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance, and Lyanna started praying to the heavens to give her strength. Ned simply stood up and walked to the coffee machine, setting it up to make the biggest pot possible and several shots of espresso. Mace was too tired to even realize his mistake.

The smirk on Jaime’s face grew wider as the legs of his chair hit the ground and he leaned forward to grace them all with his superior intellect, “Isn’t it obvious?” Jaime asked dramatically with a raise of one of his eyebrows, looking around the small lounge room that Catelyn had claimed years ago as her territory and had subsequently been kind enough to share with a very select group of annoyingly persistent people since. When Catelyn continued to rub her nose and Elia only blew a strand of ebony hair out of her eyes in disinterest, Jaime took it as his cue to continue. He didn’t care Mace hadn’t been serious. “The Kingslayer would have remained the Kingslayer if he hadn’t met Blue the True.”

The lounge door creaked open and the sound of two squealing girls echoed into the room, but then faded away down the hall. “Sansa! Margaery! Come back! Oh gosh you two!”

Catelyn finally stopped rubbing her nose in agitation to turn towards the door, her face changing from exasperation to longing in an instant. Mace was suddenly wide awake as he tried to peek through the crack in the door to smile at the ruckus outside.

Jaime continued despite the interruption and Elia snorted in laughter under her breath as she met his eye, “She became his moral compass. She told him to be honourable and good, so he was honourable and good, becoming Goldenhand the Just,” he said to her, because Jaime knew that Elia was too nice not to listen to him ramble on yet again.

At that moment, the slightly ajar door slammed open and two screaming girls raced into the room, one jumping right into her mother’s ready arms and the other toppling gracefully onto her father’s lap.

“Momma!” Sansa cried in glee as she shoved her shoulder into her mother’s face, “Look at my butterfly tattoo!”

Ned’s head nearly snapped off his neck as he stared wide-eyed, in horror, at Sansa. “A temporary tattoo, dear. Drink your coffee,” Catelyn explained. Ned visibly relaxed and then even chuckled at himself for his own over reaction. He then proceeded to guzzle five shots of espresso. The start of a semester always broke the man. Jaime thought that Ned should know by now that most students who walked into his intro classes knew nothing about ethics and were about as ethical as any eighteen year old could be.

“I got one too, papa!” Margaery squealed as she presented her upper arm to Mace who smiled at her sleepily.

“It’s very pretty sweat pea. Is that a Rosa gallica?” Elia snickered under her breath and met Jaime’s eye again. It was obvious that as exhausted as Mace was, his mind was one hundred percent on his botany courses.

Margaery giggled as she smooshed her father’s face between her small hands, “It’s just a rose dad.”

Mace kissed the tattoo and rubbed his cheek on the crown of his daughter’s head, “Yes, yes, of course sweat pea.”

That was when the tallest and broadest woman Jaime had ever seen stumbled into the room holding two backpacks that obviously belonged to the two girls. With a harried look on her face, she berated, “That wasn’t very nice Sansa, Margaery.”

Sansa gave the woman a toothy grin and squirmed back out of her mother’s grasp to go latch onto the woman’s leg. She looked up at the woman with her big, innocent eyes. It was a gaze that could take down any human. Jaime would know. Sansa had used that look on him plenty of times before to get everything she wanted that her parents had refused to buy her from the toy store. “Sorry Bri, we were just having fun.”

“Yes, Bri,” Margaery said as she primly climbed off of her father’s lap and went to hold the woman’s hand with both of hers, “We’re sorry.”

The woman, Bri, knelt down and ruffled both of the girls’ hair and smiled at them gently, “It’s alright as long as you never do that again, okay? It’s not good to run around your parents’ work place.”

“Okay!” the two girls chimed adoringly and continued to cling onto Bri.

Bri sighed and stood back up, “Sorry for interrupting, you were discussing theories on Goldenhand the Just?”

“Not discussing, Brienne,” Lyanna muttered darkly, “Ignoring.”

Brienne, thought Jaime and promptly ignored Lyanna. “Not a theory,” Jaime said as he ran his gaze over Brienne curiously. His scrutiny of her stopped when he met her eyes. He couldn’t look away. “It’s fact.”

“I don’t think that’s right,” Brienne murmured, her face twisting in contemplation, “What you said was far from fact,” she explained kindly.

Lyanna paused in her typing, a manic smile blooming on her face as she looked between Jaime and Brienne. Ned slowly turned away from the coffee machine to regard the scene before him and twitched nervously. Mace was suddenly wide-awake again and gestured for Margaery to come back over to him. Catelyn practically tripped over herself to scoop Sansa out of the line of fire. Elia leaned as far back into her chair as possible, her eyes wide and her chin pressed to her chest. For a woman studying international peace policies, she had zero interest in keeping the peace.

“Excuse me?” Jaime asked slowly, glowing embers sparking to life in his chest.

Brienne tapped her chin. “You said that Goldenhand had to be told how to be honourable by Blue.”

“I did.”

“Well that’s simply just not supported by the primary records.”

“I think I would know—“

Brienne pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples as though she were physically recalling the details to mind, “In Goldenhand’s own words, Blue the True reminded him that there was still good in the world, the good that he had once believed in and tried to live up to as a child, but had become cynical of as an adult. He wasn’t born the world weary Kingslayer, he just thought that the world was telling him that it was the only way to be.” Jaime tried to interrupt, but the woman wouldn’t let him get a word in. “And as the Blue Knight wrote, Goldenhand had always had a sense of honour, even when he was still known as the Kingslayer to her and to the realm. She didn’t fear that he would ever hurt her, only knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. They both agreed that he hadn’t found something new when he became Goldenhand the Just, only that he had reclaimed something he had lost. He already knew what was right and good, she just reminded him that what was right and good still had a place in their world,” Brienne breathed and fluttered her eyes. She gave him a happy smile, “So… not supported by the primary literature.”

Jaime gaped.

Lyanna whistled.

Elia happily threw oil on the fire, “I think I like her interpretation.”

Brienne gave Elia a nod of acknowledgement, “Thank you. I try to make sure I have all of the details before I present something as fact.”

Jaime’s eyes narrowed.

Mace winced, “She didn’t mean it that way Jaime.”

Brienne blinked as she looked around the room at the ostensibly random assemblage of associate professors and post-docs, “Mean what?”

“Jaime, don’t be a dick,” Catelyn hissed in warning.

But the fire in him had blazed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growled.

“You can find all this information in the Riverland archives if you look hard enough,” Brienne replied.

All of Jaime’s muscles clenched, “What does an ugly ogre like you know about history anyway?” he snarled.

“Jaime!” Catelyn shouted.

“What the fuck man,” Lyanna growled.

Brienne physically flinched at the sudden personal insult, her blue eyes widening. A part of Jaime realized that he had gone too far. But she had already pursed her lips, her blue eyes glowing hard like tempered steel, “More than you I guess. I’ll see you tomorrow Catelyn, Mace.”

Sansa frowned in Catelyn’s arms as Brienne turned away, “We’ll go to the park tomorrow Bri?”

Brienne turned her head and nodded sternly, “We’ll go to the park,” she said gently despite her stiff posture and her impenetrable facade. And with that she was out the door and gone.

“Mother, Maiden, and Crone, Jaime,” Elia sighed as she shook her head disappointedly at him, “I didn’t think you’d react that badly.”

“That was uncalled for,” Mace yawned as he hugged Margaery closer to him.

“You’ll apologize,” Catelyn demanded.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Jaime ground out petulantly as he stood up.

“You will!” Catelyn shouted.

Jaime kicked a chair on his way out. “Fuck off Cat!”

He had an archive to get to.

-///-///-///-

The next day, in the lounge, Jaime slammed down a stack of old books on the table. He had gotten zero sleep last night between his research and taking pages upon pages of notes, “Cat, who the fuck was she?”

“Who?” Catelyn asked innocently, clearly delighted at his stressed appearance.

“You know who I’m talking about!” Jaime growled as he parsed his giant stack of books out into neat piles and placed the appropriate set of printed notes he had taken last night on top of each pile.

“You mean that ugly ogre? The one who doesn’t know what she’s talking about?”

Jaime instantly coloured, his heart sinking in his chest, but still he charged full speed ahead, “Who’s post-doc is she? Because if she’s with Barristan Selmy, then I need to convince Arthur to steal her.”

Catelyn smiled around her coffee cup and took a sip while keying in a couple more words into her own grant application, “She’s not a post-doc Jaime.”

“PhD?”

Catelyn laughed and met his eyes, “No. Brienne’s an undergrad, second year. I met her last year when she took my Women in War class. You were outsmarted by and then subsequently bullied a teenager, Jaime.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

-///-///-///-

Several days later, after taking a few days to edit his grant application and actually getting some sleep, Jaime waited outside of her lecture hall. He spotted her the instant that she came walking out of those doors. She was not hard to miss. “Hey! You!”

Brienne kept walking. Kept walking faster.

Jaime grunted as he dodged the onslaught of students coming out of the room to try and get to her, but for a woman who commanded a lot of space, she had learnt how to seamlessly flow right through crowds. “Hey! Brienne! Fuck,” Jaime muttered as another undergrad crashed into him and her papers scattered everywhere. Jaime hurriedly bent down to gather a bunch of the sheets and handed them back to the bewildered girl. When he stood back up, Brienne was suddenly right there in front of him.

She raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t think you were going to stop to help her.”

“Did you set that up as a trial by fire or something?”

Brienne rolled her eyes, “No.”

“Then why did you stop?”

Brienne pursed her lips and then shrugged her shoulders, “You stopped shouting, I got curious and looked behind me, and you defied my expectations by not being a complete ass. So I stopped too. Should I start moving again?”

Jaime grabbed her hand to anchor her just incase she tried to make good on her suggestion, “No. I want to talk to you.”

Brienne startled at the contact and tried to shake his hand off, but he held fast. “Well then talk! You don’t need to grab my hand to do it!”

Jaime held up his other hand and offered her his little finger, “Pinky promise you won’t run away?”

“What is this? Pre-school?”

“Sansa told me you take pinky promises very seriously.” Sansa had told him a lot about Brienne when he asked. The girl adored her baby sitter and she had very much made him feel a lot worse about how he had insulted her.

“Sansa told you now, did she?”

“She tells me a lot of things. She quite likes me.”

Brienne’s mouth gaped open as realization seemed to wash over her face, “Oh… that must mean that you’re Sansa’s Jaime. I mean Catelyn’s friend Jaime. Oh Gods, which means you’re Dr. Jaime Lannister.”

Jaime smirked, “Infamous, am I?”

Brienne’s face twisted and Jaime wondered if she had ever told a lie in her life, “Sansa… well… it’s not my secret to tell.”

“She has a bit of a crush on me. Likes likes,” Jaime grinned easily, “Vexes the life out of her father and Catelyn thinks it’s both the cutest and most annoying thing in the world.”

Brienne glared at him, “Even a five year old’s crush can feed your ego, I see.”

“I’m flattered by any maiden who bestows her adoration on me.”

“She’ll get better taste as she grows.”

“Ouch, shot to the heart,” Jaime laughed. Brienne didn’t laugh with him. After a moment he quieted down and lowered his pinky. “Promise you won’t run?”

Brienne’s eyes shifted to the side, “Depends on how much of an ass you are.”

Jaime winced, “Hey,” he started, “I mean… there were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, but the most important thing was that I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. No one else I talk to studies history and I really am the best at what I do…”

Brienne glowered at him.

“I’m not bragging. It’s the truth. I can show you my office with all of the uh… awards and stuff…” he knew he was sounding like a pompous braggart, but he had dug himself into this hole, “But what I said went too far. You weren’t making it personal. I shouldn’t have made it personal.”

Brienne sighed and then fidgeted, shifting her weight on her feet. “Whatever. It’s fine. Not like it was stuff I haven’t heard before.”

Jaime grimaced.

“How did you know I was going to be here?”

Jaime scoffed, “When I went to verify what you said, I realized that you must be a history major from all the restriction and hoops they make you jump through to get at those references. That or you have one hell of a hobby. So I went with the first and I checked this class’s roster and there you were. Brienne Tarth.”

Brienne’s eyes narrowed, “How did you have this class’s roster?”

Jaime grinned, “I’m a TA for this class.”

“No…”

“And now I’m the TA for your tutoring session.”

“Excuse me? What the fuck?”

-///-///-///-

“Did you at least apologize before you dropped that bomb on her?” Elia asked.

“I did,” Jaime said proudly.

“Did you apologize properly?” Catelyn clarified.

“Do Lannisters even know how to apologize properly?” Ned mumbled as he shot another espresso and rubbed at his eyes.

“I’ll have you know that I apologized very properly,” Jaime preened.

Catelyn looked at her phone and tapped a notification, “Then why has Brienne offered to drop Sansa off at home tonight, babysitting her for three hours extra for free, when she could just bring her here like the other day?”

Jaime’s face fell, “She did what?”

Mace turned his head from where he was trying to nap in his crossed arms, “She offered me three free hours too.”

“We’re paying her for her services of course, she’s a godsend during grant season, but that doesn’t sound like you’ve apologized properly.”

Jaime gaped, “But I said sorry and everything!”

“What was everything?” Lyanna asked as she flipped the page of her printed obstetrics article and then keyed in a couple more words.

Jaime mumbled.

“Excuse me, what was that?” Elia asked, putting and hand to her ear and leaning towards him.

“I told her that I took the TA position for her session in History 333: Targaryen Dynasties.”

“So smart, already doing a third year course,” Mace mumbled sleepily.

Elia stared at Jaime, one of her eyes twitching, “So you told her, ‘I’m sorry for calling you ugly… But I’m in charge of your marks now’.”

“Uh…”

“Did you at least tell her, ‘you were right, I was wrong’?” Catelyn asked with narrowed eyes.

“Uh… not exactly?”

“Gods, just let the Stranger take you,” Lyanna snarled.

“Lyanna!” Ned berated.

“He deserves it,” Catelyn tutted.

“Obviously, but still.”

-///-///-///-

Jaime thought he got a pretty shit deal. All he had wanted to do was talk to Brienne that night at the Stark’s residence when she dropped Sansa off, say sorry again, but properly this time. However, instead he had been roped into finishing up dinner preparations for the whole Stark family while Ned and Catelyn got more time to finish their grants. Jaime didn’t even know you could get a slow cooker big enough for a small battalion.

This was what he got for knowing everything and finishing his grant early… he thought as he chopped the spring onions and broke up the freshly fried bacon, well… nearly everything.

Ned and Catelyn’s oldest child, Robb, was seated at the kitchen counter, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. Beside him, in a high chair was Robb’s youngest sister, Arya, happily swinging around a plastic sword and humming to herself. “Why couldn’t I stay at Jon’s for longer?” Robb sulked.

“Cause your parents are home and Rhaegar is tired from taking care of you two all afternoon.”

“He barely has to take care of me!”

“But he does have to watch Arya very closely, now doesn’t he?”

Robb pouted, “Brienne should take Arya. That way I can stay over for longer.”

“I imagine that having two five year olds is all that woman can handle. Two five year olds equals two nine year olds and a three year old, I guess.”

“I heard from Sansa that you called her an ogre,” Robb said, “That’s really mean Uncle Jaime.”

“So I’ve been told,” Jaime grimaced as he stirred the gravy. “I’m here to tell her I’m sorry when she drops your sister off.”

“Brienne’s really nice, she kicks the ball around with me whenever she comes over.”

“Oh stop sulking,” Jaime sighed as he pulled the aluminum wrapped potatoes out of the oven, “Once I’m done, I’ll come kick a ball around with you until Brienne and your sister get back.”

A smile appeared on Robb’s face and his auburn curls bobbed around his eyes, “Really?”

“Really.”

“Sweet.”

Jaime finished up the cooking preparations, his lips twitching at the six baked potatoes in front of him and the little baby mash that was for Arya. Six baked potatoes. Even when his family had been as whole as it could get, there had only ever been three. Most of the time it was only two, just him and Tyrion munching away at their dinners, a table for five sitting mostly empty. At least when it was just them two, there had been lightness and laughter. Jaime made a mental note to call his brother when he got home.

Taking off his oven gloves, Jaime clapped his hands in a flourish, causing Arya to startle at the sound and burst out in laughter. “Alright Robb, let’s get you and Arya outside,” Jaime grinned as he undid the straps holding Arya to her high chair and hefted her into his arms. The girl grinned and knocked him on the head with her sword and Jaime wondered at the fact that she had gotten none of her mother’s looks or patience, but all of her temperament. He imagined that Ned would never knock someone over the head with a sword. The man was too righteous and honourable and most of all, dull as a log.

Robb cheered as he hopped off of his stool and threw the back door open. He flicked on the porch lights and flipped the switch that turned on all the Christmas lights that lit up the yard. He then ran to the garden shed to retrieve his soccer ball.

Jaime bounced Arya in his arms as she gazed around at the lights and then began to squirm. “Do you want to be let down?”

“Yas!” Arya screamed.

“Do you promise not to leave my sight?” Jaime asked, knowing that her promises meant nothing.

“Yas! Down Unca Jam-me.”

Jaime grinned and set Arya down on the ground. She seemed to toddle a little bit on her feet before she gained her balance and then began racing around the yard brandishing her sword and whacking some poor innocent trees. To his surprise, she stayed in his line of sight.

“Uncle Jaime!” Robb shouted. Jaime turned around and immediately a soccer ball hit him square in the chest.

Jaime wheezed, “More warning next time would be nice.”

“Brienne never needs warning,” Robb said. And although Jaime knew that it wasn’t meant to be a direct challenge against him, he felt the competitiveness tickle in his bones anyways. He would show Robb who the better soccer player was.

Jaime retrieved the soccer ball and volleyed it between his feet before he passed it back to Robb. The nine year old laughed in glee and received the ball, putting it into the air and bouncing it between his knees. “Show off!” Jaime teased and Robb grinned in utter delight before he passed it back to Jaime.

They jogged around the yard passing the ball back and forth, Jaime switching his attention back to Arya at regular intervals. She seemed mightily happy causing mayhem and destruction at the edge of the yard.

Robb gave a little bit of an uncontrolled kick and Jaime received the ball badly, making it roll up to Arya’s feet and gently whap her in the ankles. Arya turned around with a bit of a toddle and looked up at her brother and then over at Jaime. “Kick it back Arya!” Robb encouraged.

Arya looked down at the ball and her face squashed in concentration. Jaime dropped down to a squat and waved his hands, “Come on Arya, pass it over to me.” With a mighty kick she sent the ball rolling back between the two boys and Robb cheered for her spectacular feat.

That was when Jaime heard clapping from the porch and he whirled around to see Brienne sitting with Sansa, both of them cheering for Arya while Ned and Catelyn moved all of the food from the kitchen to the table outside.

Jaime blinked once and then twice. But the feeling didn’t disappear. The lights of the yard reflecting in Brienne’s too blue eyes made his heart stutter and race.

“Brin!” Arya squealed as she zipped across the yard and crashed into Brienne’s arms.

Brienne laughed and lifted her into the air, “Hello Arya, you star soccer player you.”

Jaime felt a hand pat his arm and he looked down to see Robb staring back at him, “Can we play again after dinner Uncle Jaime?”

Jaime smiled down at the boy and nodded, “Sure, I’d love to.”

Robb gave him a big smile and picked up the soccer ball to place it right beside the porch. “Wash your hands Robb!” Catelyn admonished.

“Yes mom,” Robb cried as he raced inside to go wash his hands.

Jaime stuffed his hands in his pockets and swallowed nervously before he made his way to where Brienne was sitting. All three girls looked at him curiously as he stopped short of them, “Hey…” he muttered apprehensively.

“Hey,” Brienne said softly.

“Before I say anything else, so that I don’t uh…”

“Pull a Jaime!” Catelyn interrupted.

Jaime snorted and Brienne almost smiled, “Pull a Jaime. I just wanted to say, because this is what I had meant to say the other day… um…” he clenched his fist and bit the bullet, “You were right and I was wrong. All the texts you referenced backed up what you said and I totally missed it while doing my research, so… thank you.”

Brienne raised an eyebrow, “Why are you thanking me?”

Jaime saw from the corner of his eye that Ned and Catelyn were shooting each other smug looks, delighting in the deflating of his ego, and Jaime swallowed down his defensive reflex. It was what had landed him in this situation in the first place. “Because my grant was on how the Kingslayer became Goldenhand the Just. Mace was just being an ass and as always, I took the bait. To my own detriment, I thought…” Jaime paused as he looked at her, “But it turned out to be to my benefit. The grant is much better now. So thank you… for setting me straight and setting fire to my ego.”

Brienne stared at him for a long moment, not saying a single word before she let out a sigh, “Damn,” she muttered and looked away.

Jaime blinked in confusion. “What?”

Brienne rubbed the bridge of her nose, “And I thought I had found a reason to absolutely detest you.”

“What?” Jaime asked bewildered, “Why did you want to detest me?”

“Because she doesn’t want to admit she likes you like I like you,” Sansa stated with all of her five your old confidence. Then the girl seemed to realize what she had just admitted to and her mouth dropped in horror.

“What?” Jaime asked, his head snapping to look back at Brienne.

“Not like that!” Brienne cried. Brienne chewed her lip and flushed the colour of strawberries, her freckles like the seeds. It was kind of unbearably cute, but Sansa looked like she was about to cry.

Jaime grinned at Brienne, but first, he turned back to little Sansa. “Thank you for this information Sansa,” he said bending down to get his face closer to Sansa’s and kissed her gently on the forehead, “I like you too.” Brienne scooted back because Jaime’s face had also gotten precariously close to hers while Sansa vibrated in glee and took the chance to kiss Jaime back on the cheek with a blushy and shy giggle. Ned looked near murderous, but Catelyn was enjoying the show. Jaime then turned his head to look at Brienne between his lashes, “Like what then?”

Brienne gapped at him like a fish for a minute before Catelyn took pity on the poor girl. “She’s read all of your papers, everything you’ve ever published. She likes your academics Jaime, not you. Now come sit down for dinner.” Sansa and Arya rushed towards their parents and Robb reappeared at the dinner table.

He regarded Brienne, “Is that right?”

Brienne flushed and turned away, “You’re brilliant, okay? Are you happy now?”

Jaime grinned, “Very.” He offered her a hand. She glared at it for one moment and then took it. Once she was on her feet, he realized that she was as tall as he was, which only gave him an even better look at her eyes. “Astonishing,” he murmured.

“What?” Brienne asked with a raised skeptical eyebrow.

Jaime shook his head and they walked over to the dinner table together, “Don’t worry about.” He didn’t think that telling her that her eyes were the prettiest things he had ever seen less than a week after calling her ugly and an ogre was going to go well for him. He would save that compliment for some time later.

Chapter Text

Jaime couldn’t help but smirk when he left the classroom after the first tutoring session and Brienne was waiting for him outside with the most annoyed expression on her face. If he hadn't been her TA, she would have head butt him. “Attendance marks?” she growled as she fell into step beside him, “You scared the living daylights out of me over attendance marks?”

“All of this class’s sessions are at 8 am, yours being on Monday of all days, it’s a third year class, and there’s no assigned reading to be terrified of not completing. So yeah, attendance marks,” Jaime grinned and lifted his chin so that he could better look into her eyes, “What? Did you think that there was going to be a conflict of interest?”

Brienne flushed and grappled at her backpack straps.

Jaime chuckled and took a bit of pity on her, “I would have switched to a course you weren’t taking if there would have been. Don’t worry.”

Brienne looked at him again and then nodded sternly before she marched off.

He couldn’t help but watch her go.

The following semester with her in his tutoring session was an interesting one. The tutoring sessions in History 333 mostly consisted of discussion regarding the topics that were covered during lectures and for the most part Jaime found that he and Brienne had the same interpretations of events. However, when they did disagree... those sessions often spiraled out of control, the other students present a little bit bewildered at the fact that one of their own was so willing to just yell at their TA while their TA was so willing to just yell right back. The other students were even more bewildered by the fact that Jaime and Brienne were always back to normal by the next session, if somehow more amendable. What the other students didn’t know was that in order to get to the stage of being civil with each other again, Brienne would often trail Jaime back to the lounge both of them still yelling all the while. There, they would continue to debate with each other while frantically emailing each other references, and when there were topics that required more than a day of debate, books would often be slammed on to the table with a resounding “I TOLD YOU SO” or “SEE??? SEE??????” and even once a "READ THIS AND WEEP!"

Most of the time Jaime won the arguments, but whenever Brienne managed to out smart him, she would do so brutally and without mercy.

Ned, Catelyn, Lyanna, Elia, and Mace had gotten used to Brienne’s presence in their lounge and depending on their workload, they would be there to watch the fireworks or would safely be stowed away in their own offices, on Monday mornings especially.

When the little mixture of professors and post-docs had a late night and Brienne had to drop off the girls in the lounge because she couldn’t take them until later into the evening, she brought coffee for the group, each person getting their own personal order.

With Sansa and Margaery curled up with Mace on the lounge’s couch watching cartoons and Ned quietly muttering under his breath about his PhD students, it was not so innocent, and not so innocuous Elia who brought it up first. “Do you know why Brienne has suddenly started bringing us coffee?” she asked the whole room, but not really, as she sipped her Kashmiri chai and flickered her eyes coyly over to Jaime.

Jaime shrugged as he squinted at his screen, trying to pull together all of his notes into a semblance of a draft for a publication. He would have to get Brienne to look through it when she wasn’t busy drowning in her final exams. “Cause she’s nice?”

“Oh,” Elia murmured as she swirled her cup. Catelyn’s sunk in her chair with a smile on her face and Lyanna grinned wolfishly. “So you think she’s… nice.”

Jaime finally picked up on her insinuation and looked up with narrowed eyes, “What is that tone of voice Martell?”

“Nothing.” Elia chirped innocently and then tilted her head in false questioning, “She’s about to enter her third year, isn’t she? You don’t TA any other third or fourth year classes right now, right? There are no rules or restrictions about post-docs dating undergrads as long as there is no conflict of interest?”

“There’s nothing going on between Brienne and I.”

Elia covered her mouth and giggled loudly, “Who ever said anything about you and Brienne. I didn’t say anything about you and Brienne. Did anyone else hear me say anything about Jaime and Brienne?” Elia rested her chin on the back of her hand and grinned at him, “Is there something going on with you and Brienne?” Jaime glowered at her and Elia swatted away the look with her bubbly charm.

“Not right now there isn’t,” Lyanna grinned with the straw to her triple chocolate chip, double shot, frappuccino in her mouth, “But we all know something’s going to happen.” Ned shot her a dirty look.

He turned to Jaime, “At least wait until she graduates, you don’t know if the department will ask you to TA a different course next year or the year after that. You don’t want a create a conflict of interest.”

“Of course I don’t want to create a conflict of interest, but I’m also not going to count down the days until she graduates like a creep either,” Jaime hissed between his teeth, not at all wanting to acknowledge what his words meant between the lines.

“Well that’s all right and good,” Catelyn said slowly but then she gave him an earnest look, “But if you aren’t waiting until she graduates, what are you waiting for?”

Honestly, Jaime hadn’t gotten to thinking that far.

Mainly because he wasn’t trying to think of it at all.

But of course, he had been failing.

-///-///-///-

“I got it!”

“What?” Mace asked, blinking at him sleepily.

“I got the grant!” Jaime shouted as he shot out of his chair and onto his feet, knocking the piece of furniture down to the ground. “I got to go find Brienne and buy her a drink! Shit! I can’t believe I got the grant!”

Elia clapped, “Congratulation Jaime!”

“Brienne’s gone home for the summer Jaime,” Catelyn admonished with a roll of her eyes. Jaime stared at Catelyn, confused. “Home,” Catelyn reiterated slowly as though talking to Arya or an even younger child. “She’s not from the Riverlands. She’s gone back to Tarth for the summer.”

“Oh…” Jaime muttered. He picked up his chair and slowly sat back down.

Lyanna rolled her eyes, “You could celebrate with us, buy us drinks you asshole.”

Jaime pouted and opened his email client to send Brienne a very irate email, “Sure. I guess.”

-///-///-///-

Okay. So maybe it was a little bit weird.

“I didn’t actually believe that you’d come…” Brienne muttered as she dropped her bag at her feet.

Jaime grinned at her from inside the car and waved her in, “I told you, I owe you a drink.”

Brienne shook her head and opened his back door to throw her duffel bag in the back seat, “Make it three.”

Jaime chuckled as Brienne climbed into the front seat, “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Well you’re the one who’s driving me to drink,” Brienne teased.

Jaime started his car, “And how’s that?”

“By not giving me even a moment’s worth of peace,” Brienne laughed as Jaime pulled out of the queue of cars, “My inbox is full of your messages and now you’re even picking me up at the airport.”

“It’s been boring not having someone to debate the War of the Five Kings with,” Jaime grinned as he made a turn out of the airport and merged onto the highway towards Riverrun University.

“You mean it’s been a relief.”

“Only for you, I like being right.”

Brienne scoffed loudly at that, “You’re not always right Jaime.”

“I know,” he grinned, unabashedly happy for the first time in four months, “I know.”

-///-///-///-

“Gods, your neighbourhood is terrifying,” Jaime muttered as his eyes flickered over the small alleyways and the strange businesses with their neon signs and their blacked out windows.

Brienne shrugged, “Rent’s cheap, summer job can only carry me so far.”

“Cheap enough to be worth your life?”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I don’t think I am,” Jaime grimaced as he watched a rat scurry along the wall and disappear down a sewer drain.

“You didn’t have to walk me home you know,” Brienne muttered, eying her duffle bag thrown over his shoulder disapprovingly. They had gotten into one of their typical rows when he had insisted on carrying it and like an idiot she had staked her bag on his knowledge of a historical fact, thinking that he wouldn’t know anything about Tarth. He could see in her eyes her bafflement when he kept on getting her questions right. Sure, Tarth had been the birthplace of Blue the True and the landing point of Aegon VI, the false king, when he had tried to reclaim Westeros, but beyond those points of interest, Tarth didn’t have that much of a charismatic history attached to it. Brienne had no way of knowing that he had recently become obsessed with the history of the island. There was no reason for her to know that either.

Jaime swept his gaze over the streets again and saw a group of people arguing at the corner of a street, “I think that I should’ve definitely walked you home.”

Brienne rolled her eyes, “Nothing’s going to happen to me Jaime. No one’s going to attack me.”

“You can’t know that,” Jaime hissed.

“Oh come on Jaime, look at me.”

He turned to her and didn’t even have to flicker his eyes over her form, he already knew every line of her, “I am looking at you!”

“Then you can see why I’m perfectly safe.”

Jaime frowned at her, “It doesn’t matter what you look like Brienne, when someone wants blood they’ll go for anyone. It’s not about what you do or what you look like, it’s about them and their mindset. I wouldn’t want to walk alone here. Gods you must know this.”

Brienne blinked at him and then looked at the ground, “I mean… theoretically I do.”

“Theoretically?”

“I mean…” Brienne sighed, “It’s hard to explain.”

“We always talk about the things that are hard to explain.”

“It kind of digs deep.”

“I mean, if you don’t want to explain, that’s a whole different story.”

Brienne winced, “I mean I do… but I don’t want you to think any differently about me because of it.”

“Hey,” Jaime stopped and grabbed her shoulder, “I know you, at least some of you. I’d like to think most of you and if I don’t yet, then I want to soon. And I like what I do know. I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep liking whatever I get to know, unless you secretly abuse animals or something. But that’s about as likely as the sun imploding in the next second.” Jaime paused for a second. Brienne laughed quietly under her breath. Jaime smiled, “So you can talk to me about anything. We’re… friends? Aren’t we?”

Brienne smiled at him and nodded, “Yeah, we’re friends.”

Jaime grinned back, “Good. Now take your time.”

Brienne wrung her hands and peeked up at Jaime between her lashes and then dropped her gaze back down to the ground. She gave a loud sigh and then started her story, “My dad tried to set me up on a blind date, when I was in high school, with the son of one of his business associates. I wasn’t that interested in dating, but I thought why not, for my dad, let’s go on this date with this guy. He was older and people described him as good looking enough so I thought it would at least be a fun time and maybe we could have a laugh out of it and be friends after.”

Jaime felt a sense of dread building in his stomach.

“But when he was brought to my table at the restaurant, he took just one look at me and laughed in my face. I was even uglier than they said, he told me,” Brienne swallowed, “And next time I shouldn’t waste anyone’s time by saying yes to a blind date since no one would ever want anything of me…”

“Shit,” Jaime swore.

“He threw the bouquet he had brought with him in my face and laughed the whole way out of the restaurant.”

“Brienne… that’s just one guy—“

“And then in my first year of university,” Brienne murmured quickly as she pulled at her fingers, “A bunch of guys from the rowing club I had joined suddenly started being really nice to me.”

Jaime’s heart was in his throat.

“Long story short they had a bet on who could take my virginity,” Brienne laughed under her breath, “When I confronted the guy who was nicest to me, he told me that all women could be pretty… in the dark.”

“Fucking hell. You can’t possibly believe these guys—“

“You called me an ugly ogre when you first met me,” Brienne said and looked at him with a sad smile.

Jaime had never hated himself more.

“Don’t worry,” Brienne laughed and looked away again, her fingers stretching and clenching, “You weren’t the first and you haven’t been the last to tell me so.”

Since meeting him others had called her ugly to her face. He was one in a long list of men who had ingrained this non-truth into her soul.

“Your eyes,” he spluttered, still not knowing if it was the right time, “From the moment I met you I’ve thought your eyes are astonishing.”

Brienne looked up at him and to his relief the small smile that grace her lips reached her eyes. Her beautiful, astonishing eyes. “Thank you, Jaime.”

It had been the right time.

He might’ve been on a long list of people that had been unkind and cruel to her, but he would make sure that he would also be on the list of people who cared for and cherished her too.

-///-///-///-

Jaime was in the middle of trying to revise his publication, a stack of library books lying open in front of him when a knock sounded on the door. Jaime looked up as the door creaked open and Brienne peeked her head in, “Oh good, you’re here,” she said.

Jaime gave her a tired smile, “Hey, how did your midterm exams go?”

Brienne looked around and saw that Elia was curled up asleep on the couch, “Good,” she whispered, “Can I come in?”

Jaime gestured with his head, “Come in, she sleeps like the dead.”

Brienne nodded with a smile on her face and entered the room. She glanced over at Elia again and walked over to the couch to pull the throw from the back and lay it over the Dornish woman. Jaime smiled as he watched Brienne make sure that the throw was tucked under Elia’s chin and that her feet were covered before she came to his side. “What are you up to?” Brienne asked.

“Same publication.”

“You’ve been working on it for a long time,” Brienne murmured as she pulled a chair up to sit beside him.

Jaime sighed and rubbed his face, “It’s been hard finding the right references and Arthur has pointed out some places that need work.”

Brienne frowned, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“This is because I said what I did about Goldenhand and Blue.”

Jaime laughed under his breath and reached out to tuck an errant strand of flaxen hair behind Brienne’s ear. She flushed a delightful shade of pink. The one that reminded him of strawberries. “I still don’t understand why you’re sorry.”

“There’re so many texts that would’ve been able to support your claim that he became good because of her.”

“And they’re all wrong, derived from the same unreliable source. You went back to primary accounts. Without you I would never have gotten the grant to investigate this in the first place.”

Brienne turned to look at him, “You think so?”

“I know so. I would have just been another drop in the sea of people with that idea. This is hard because it’s different,” Jaime said.

Brienne nodded reluctantly and bit on her lower lip.

Jaime’s eyes flickered to the movement before he looked back into her eyes, “So what are you doing here Brienne?”

And then to his surprise Brienne flushed a bright red, “Um… well… I…”

Jaime’s eyebrow shot to his hairline, “You?”

Brienne wrung her hands and blurted, “Iwaswonderingifyouwantedtogototherugbygamewithme.IhavetwoticketsandtheonlyotherpersonIthinkwhowouldbeinterestedisRobb,buthavingakidcometoagamewithmeisdifferentthanhavinganadultandsoIthoughtI’daskyou,butifyoudon’twant—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down!” Jaime laughed and then peeked over Brienne’s shoulder to make sure they hadn’t woken Elia up, “Tell me if I’ve got this right. You have two tickets to the rugby game and you were wondering if I wanted to go with you?”

Brienne nodded unnaturally and gawped at him with wide eyes.

Jaime felt his heart skip a beat, “I’d love to go with you.”

Brienne let out a loud sigh of relief and then dug through her backpack. She pulled out a ticket and passed it to him. “It’s this weekend.”

Jaime looked at the details of the game, “I’ll pick you up?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Brienne bit her lower lip again and nodded, “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“It won’t interfere with your process?” Brienne asked as she waved at his laptop and the books on the table.

Jaime shook his head, “No.”

“Um… can I see what you’re having trouble with?” Brienne asked.

Jaime nodded and turned the laptop towards her. As she read, he quickly explained, “Arthur noted that I didn’t have very much on why Blue the True went to serve in the War of the Five Kings in the first place. How was it that she came into the position to meet the Kingslayer? The records say that she was the sole living heir of her house, so what could have possibly motivated her to leave home? Was it even just one reason? Or was the motivation multifaceted. All I’m getting is that she left because she was good with a sword, but that can’t possibly be the only reason to leave everything behind.”

Brienne nodded along with everything he said and then seemed to sit there for a bit in contemplation. “I think you’re right, there must have been more than one motivation.”

“Of course I’m right,” Jaime grinned.

Brienne glared at him and then stood up. “Well, good luck with that. I’ll see you on Saturday?”

“See you on Saturday,” Jaime said.

The moment Brienne closed the door, Jaime glared at the lump on the couch. “Out with it!”

“It’s a dateeeee,” Elia chirped playfully as she hid all but her eyes under the blanket.

The next evening, Jaime’s inbox pinged with over twenty forwarded emails, all loaded to capacity with scanned pages of ridiculously old documents. In each message was the text, Didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it turns out I was the one who was right. My dad had what you needed. –Brienne xoxo

Jaime tried really hard not to think about the hugs and kisses as he frantically printed out all of the attachments.

-///-///-///-

“Oh my god… are you trying to get us killed?” Brienne laughed as she climbed into his car.

Jaime grinned as he pulled at his shirt, “Did you really think I was going to support the Riverlands Trout over the Lannisport Lions? Especially since the Lions are the clear favourites?”

“No, but I didn’t think you were going to dress up in the full kit either.”

“And I’m not going to be the only one!”

“You didn’t…”

Jaime grinned and pulled a bag out of the back seat and dumped it onto Brienne’s lap, “I did.”

“Catelyn will disown me!”

“Cat doesn’t give a shit about rugby. Wear the kit. Wear the kit.”

Brienne dug through the contents of the bag and pulled out a foam head piece, “You actually got me a Roaring Lion?”

“I did.”

“You better have gotten yourself one too.”

Jaime grinned, “I did.”

“I’m not wearing this.”

“Oh, I am, therefore you are.”

They ended up being part of the small faction of people that were there to support the Lannisport Lions and when the Lions scored the try that won them the game at seventy eight minutes, the cameras were all over the two fans wearing the Roaring Lion heads.

Jaime cackled when Brienne’s phone rang less than a minute after the game was called and Catelyn declared her a traitor to the cause. It turned out that she did care about rugby. She cared a lot. To rub salt in Catelyn’s wound, Robb asked to have Brienne’s Roaring Lion head the next time she and Jaime visited and no amount of coaxing could convince him that wearing a fish head was cooler.

-///-///-///-

Jaime felt around for the light switch in the lounge, which should have instantly tipped him off that something was amiss. The lounge was almost never empty, not even in the middle of the night, much less early in the afternoon.

The moment the light flickered on, Jaime was assaulted with confetti and the loud sound of party blowers and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Surprise!” all of his friends cried.

“Congratulations on getting your paper published,” Catelyn cheered as Sansa threw herself at him.

“Uncle Jaime,” Sansa chirped and kissed him on the cheek adoringly. Ned pursed his lips, but had stopped glaring long ago for some reason. It was like he finally realized that Jaime would never have any designs on his daughter no matter how big her crush on him was.

Jaime picked Sansa up off the ground and held her as he smiled at all of the people gathered in the room. Margaery was sitting on her father’s lap and clapping along with everyone else in the room, although it was obvious she didn’t quite understand why, just like Sansa had not a clue, but was happy for him anyways. Mace looked horribly exhausted as always, but he held up a cup filled to the brim in a silent toast to Jaime’s success. Catelyn and Ned were serving out small plates of finger food and sweets, all store bought, but a sweet gesture none-the-less. Lyanna was wrestling with her son, Jon, and Robb in the corner, the two boys trying to best their mother and aunt, but coming out fairly unsuccessful. Elia was cooing at Arya as she, for once, sat quietly in Elia’s arms. And Brienne, Brienne was waving a copy of his manuscript around in pride.

“Another one for the books, Dr. Jaime Lannister,” Brienne commended.

Jaime grinned and immediately went to her side, “Only thanks to your help.”

“What’s going to be your next project Dr. Lannister?” A shiver ran through him and he ignored how much he liked how that sounded when she said it as best he could.

“Well, I’ve already started a grant application based on Blue the True’s journey between meeting the Kingslayer and meeting Goldenhand the Just.”

Brienne’s eyes widened and she tilted her head, “Interesting,” she murmured. Jaime smiled fondly at the familiar expression of her thinking.

“Very interesting,” Sansa parroted happily and snuggled into Jaime’s neck.

Brienne smiled at Sansa and brushed a finger against the girl’s cheek before she turned back to Jaime, “There are so many texts documenting and analyzing Goldenhand’s life between meeting the Blue Knight the first and second time, but so few on Blue the True’s. I think you have another winner.”

Jaime grinned, “Good to have your seal of approval Dr. Tarth.” He liked how that sounded too.

Brienne’s eyes flashed in confusion and then concern, “Have you hit your head Jaime? I don’t have a doctorate.”

“Well you will, might as well call you Doctor now.”

Brienne stared at him unblinkingly, “No I won’t.”

“What are you talking about Brienne, of course you will. You’re fu—“ he looked over at Sansa who perked up in curiosity, “You’re brilliant. I don’t doubt for a second you’ll make it through your PhD and achieve great things.”

“I’m…” Brienne said then gnawed on her bottom lip and looked him straight in the eye, “I’m not doing a PhD, Jaime. I’m not going into academia.”

-///-///-///-

“Will you stop freaking out,” Catelyn muttered in exasperation.

“Not going into academia,” Jaime cried as he pushed back his chair causing a loud screeching sound to emanate through the air, “She says she’s not going into academia!”

“Not everyone wants to go into academia Jaime,” Elia said gently.

“Not everyone who goes into academia enjoys academia,” added Mace.

“But this is Brienne we’re talking about,” Jaime insisted, “She’s fucking genius.”

“We got that,” sighed Lyanna, “But in the end it’s her choice.”

“But why would she choose not to go into academia,” Jaime whined and slumped in his chair.

“By the Seven,” Ned muttered, “Not everyone has the money to be in school for that long Jaime.”

Jaime looked over at Ned and then immediately started calculating how much money he had in his trust fund and how much he could make on investments. He needed to make another call to Tyrion. His little brother had a much better handle on money than he did.

“Stop Jaime,” Catelyn sighed, “Brienne has money. She has a trust fund nearly as big as yours, so don’t even think about paying for her education.”

“A trust fund as big as… Why the hell does she live in a decrepit neighbourhood?”

“It was originally a trust fund made for four,” Catelyn smiled sadly, “But her siblings all died in childhood, so she doesn’t like using it.”

Jaime didn’t say anything to that.

So he thought about why she wouldn’t want to go into academia. And then he thought about it more. He thought really hard about it. About Brienne, about what she had told him about her life, about Tarth, and her family, her father.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh?” Catelyn asked.

“I know why she isn’t going into academia,” Jaime murmured as he opened a new browser tab and typed in a name.

Elia’s eyebrows came together in confusion, “You do?” She leaned towards him to try and get a peak of his screen.

Jaime nodded as he thought back to all of the documents Brienne had forwarded him over the past year and a half, about how she knew so much about history despite her age and how she knew how to navigate through the Riverrun archives with such ease. He leaned back as he clicked the first link that appeared from his search.

And there stood a man with Brienne’s build and Brienne’s smile. He didn’t have the colour of Brienne’s eyes, but they shined with her intelligence and her guile. Selwyn Tarth, the curator of the Stormland Archives, located on the island of Tarth. “She’s planning on taking over after her father.” She was planning on leaving the Riverlands for forever in just one more year.

-///-///-///-

Jaime felt a little bit loss at sea and so Catelyn took pity on him and invited him over for dinner. This time, he wasn’t put to work and instead was immediately dragged outside to play soccer with Robb and a slightly less little Arya.

“You seem out of it,” Robb said as he received Jaime’s sloppy pass and volleyed the ball between his feet, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, little man,” Jaime replied.

Robb stuck his tongue out, “Which means it’s a girl problem.”

Jaime snorted, “What?”

Robb nodded wisely, “Girls are very confusing.”

“Is that so?” Jaime asked, “Are you having girl problems?”

Robb pursed his lips and then went up to Jaime after passing the ball to Arya, who missed the pass and ran after the ball. “I have two girl problems,” Robb whispered.

“Two?” Jaime grinned as he crouched down to listen.

Robb nodded, “One of them is really pretty, but the other one always seems really lonely, so I don’t want to be mean by not choosing her either.”

“Why don’t you just play with both of them?”

“Play with them?” Robb asked, confused, “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you be friends with both of them? You don’t need to choose,” Jaime suggested, “Get to know them both.”

“Isn’t it weird being friends with too many girls?”

“Your mom is one of my longest standing friends and my best friend is a girl. It’s not at all weird.”

Robb seemed to contemplate Jaime’s advice before he nodded, “That’s a good idea then. Now what’s your girl problem?”

“I never said I had a girl problem,” Jaime grinned and tweaked Robb’s nose.

Robb’s mouth gaped open in affront before he closed it and pouted, “Dad says lying is bad.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Brienne’s a girl, isn’t she?”

Jaime blinked, “She is.”

“Then you have a girl problem.”

“How…” Jaime swallowed, “How did you know it was a Brienne problem?”

That was when Arya made her reappearance and impatiently fell into Jaime’s lap, “Obviass,” she stated then threw the soccer ball at his head.

-///-///-///-

When he went back inside, Brienne had arrived with Sansa and Sansa positively lit up at the sight of him, “Uncle Jaime!” she cried and tackled him.

Jaime chuckled and scooped her up off the ground and swung her around, “Good evening Sansa, how was your day with Brienne?”

Sansa tilted her head back and then said, “Brienne took Margaery and me to the carousel today. I got to ride the white horsey,” Sansa explained.

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” Jaime grinned.

Sansa nodded enthusiastically. That was when Brienne approached. Sansa grinned toothily and chirped, “Sansa will leave you alone now,” Jaime stared at her blankly for a moment before she rolled her eyes and kissed him on the cheek, “Down Uncle Jaime.”

Jaime set Sansa down and she ran off to go bother her brother and sister. He looked up at Brienne bewildered, “That was new,” he said.

Brienne tilted her head, “What was?”

“Sansa not wanting to cuddle for as long as possible.”

Brienne’s eyebrows furrowed, “Strange, she was talking you up to me all day.”

Jaime smirked, “Good things, I’m sure.”

Brienne laughed, “She did say you have very pretty hair.”

“That I do. That I do,” Jaime preened as he ran his fingers through his golden locks.

On the edge of his hearing he heard Ned whisper to Catelyn, “They don’t see it at all, do they? All our kids see it and they don’t.”

Catelyn then whispered back, “That’s because they both have the emotional intelligence of a three year old.”

He wanted to shout that he did not have the emotional intelligence of a three year old… but that would mean he would have to admit to something else, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready yet… if she was ready yet. So he continued to ignore them in favour of Brienne teasingly asking him if she could feel his hair.

He said yes.

-///-///-///-

After dinner, Jaime offered to walk Brienne home again and she accepted his offer. “How is the grant going?” Brienne asked.

“Good, still doing the initial phases of research, but I’m getting there.”

Brienne nodded, “That’s good. It’s such a good idea, you’re going to get that grant for sure.”

“Your faith in me is reassuring,” Jaime laughed. Brienne smiled, her eyes glittering with the expression. “Are you going back to Tarth this summer?”

“That’s the plan,” Brienne laughed, “Are you going to flood my inbox again?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Brienne snorted, “Looking forward to it.”

Jaime gulped nervously, not quite understanding why he was feeling this emotion. What he was about to ask was common enough between colleagues, and since the end of her second year, that was functionally what they were, despite his multiple degrees and years on her. “I can also flood your text messages.”

Brienne stared at him and then gaped, “By the Seven, you don’t have my number yet!” She squeaked and quickly dug for her phone.

At her relaxed reaction, Jaime felt his nerves cool. She tapped her phone a couple times and then handed him a new contact screen. He entered in his details and the moment Brienne got her phone back, her fingers flew over the keyboard. After a second, she stopped typing and his phone beeped. Jaime pulled out his phone and looked at the notification screen. An unknown number had sent him the message “En garde! o=|=======>” Jaime laughed as he quickly messaged her back, “<=======|=o Allez!”

Brienne looked up at him, her blue eyes sparkling in mirth.

And then he heard the tires squeal.

And saw the headlights shine on them.

Grabbing Brienne, he turned their bodies so that he would take the brunt of the blow.

The last thing he saw were strands of her flaxen hair.

The last thing he felt were her hands pushing on him to try and turn them the other way.

The last thing he heard was the furious shout of, “Fuck you Tywin Lannister!”

The last thought he had was that if Brienne was hurt, he was going kill his father.

And then all was black.

-///-///-///-

When Jaime woke, it was to the sound of a steady heart monitor. He wasn’t hooked to a breathing apparatus, which meant that his lungs were fine, and for the most part it felt as though he had gotten away from the accident unscathed.

Jaime cracked open an eye, sticky from the gunk that had gathered between his eyelids and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Brienne sitting in a chair by his bedside. She was slumped over asleep, her head resting on her arms, one of which had a cast on it, and one of her cheeks was covered in cotton and gauze.

Jaime tried to sit up, but all of his ribs ached, probably bruised from the accident and one of his arms was, too, in a cast.

It seemed like despite his best efforts, Brienne and he had been injured in much the same way when the car had careened into both of their sides. He only wondered whose reflexes it had been that had saved their lives. Maybe both of them together, he thought merrily, and then realized he was probably high on pain medication. That probably meant he was a lot more hurt than he thought he was. That came as a relief to him. Brienne had obviously been discharged.

“Jaime?” Brienne murmured as she lifted her head and rubbed at her eyes. At the sight of him awake, she jolted fully to her feet and cupped his cheeks, “Jaime?”

He nodded as best he could, his throat too dry to get words out.

“Oh thank the Seven,” Brienne murmured as she pressed her forehead to his and began to cry, “Oh thank the all the Seven,” she praised again. Her tears fell onto his face, “You stupid, stupid man.”

-///-///-///-

After he had been checked up and given a glass of water, he was informed of his condition. Indeed he was more bruised than not, a couple ribs broken, a couple more fractured and his right arm practically shattered. They had been able to mend the skin, muscle, and bone, but the nerves would never be the same. They didn’t expect that he would ever regain fine motor skill in his right hand again.

After the doctors had left, he asked Brienne quite stoically, he thought, about the person that had tried to run them… him, over. The man had been caught, arrested, tried, and found guilty, all in quick and due order. His father had guaranteed it.

But… but although his father had made sure he had received the best available care, the best chance for any kind of movement of his hand, his father hadn’t visited even once.

It was such a contrast to Brienne, who had cancelled her summer at home to be by his side.

-///-///-///-

“Your brother is really nice,” Brienne said as she sat by his hip and smoothed out the blanket on his legs.

For some reason he couldn’t stop staring at her, at the graceful movement of her hands as she found any small excuse to so innocently touch him. “He visited?”

“Tons of times while you were asleep.”

“How long was I in a coma for?”

“A couple days to begin with. When you woke up the first time the doctors deemed you medically fit enough to undergo the anesthesia needed for the operation on your hand and then you were in a medically induced one for a week.”

“So I’ve only been out for about a week and a half?”

Brienne pursed her lips and shook her head, “You were taken out of the medically induced coma a week ago… we weren’t sure if you were ever going to wake up.”

“Oh…”

Brienne looked down at her hands and wrung them, “Tyrion was so scared. He said that he couldn’t lose you. You were his only real family. I called him, he’s on his way here now.”

Jaime smiled, “Did he say that now?”

“Don’t tell him I told you that,” Brienne said with a small smile.

“You can’t expect me not to lord it over him.”

Brienne rolled her eyes fondly, “Of course I can’t.”

Jaime watched her and then thought, to hell with it. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay?”

Brienne flushed ever so slightly and bit her bottom lip, “I was scared,” she admitted in a whisper, “And regretful that I wasn’t able to do the last thing you asked of me, if you never woke up.”

“What did I ask of you?”

Brienne shook her head, “You don’t remember waking up at all, do you? For those couple of minutes before they took you into the OR.”

Jaime’s eyebrows furrowed. “No. What did I say Brienne?”

“The doctors whisked you away so quickly Jaime.”

“Brienne, what did I say?”

“Stay.”

-///-///-///-

Jaime couldn’t actually remember it, but he could almost piece it together anyways. Confused and scared after waking up after nearly dying, surrounded by a bunch of unfamiliar faces except for one. He would have recognized her instantly, he knew, simply by the colour of her eyes if not by everything that was so dear about her. He could imagine that he had been panicked and in pain and thinking that he needed her by his side… not just then…but always.

Stay.

He could imagine that his mind had been boggled, piecing together fragments of memories so that he couldn’t even retain the ones he should have been making. This time next year she will be gone, he believed he could have thought in those few minutes of waking.

Now… and forever… he wanted.

Stay.

How selfish of him.

Chapter Text

He was discharged from the hospital less than a week later.

He didn’t walk home.

He didn’t go home alone.

Brienne sat by his side in the back of a taxi as the world flashed by. Their unbroken arms sat between them.

And on the seat her pinky crossed over his.

-///-///-///-

“Gods…” Brienne muttered as she stared at the building the taxi had stopped in front of, “No wonder you were disgusted by my old neighbourhood.” The high rise was made of marble and sharp lines, beautiful and elegant with just enough glass to make the building shine.

Jaime chuckled as he eyed his building in a new light, “I have standards, that’s all.”

Brienne glared at him as they walked up the stone staircase and into the lobby, “If this is your standard, then you are a flagrant rich boy with no care—“

Jaime laughed again, “Tyrion owns the building. He gave me a good deal. Why would I say no?”

“Because there is a fountain in lobby Jaime,” Brienne hissed, gesturing at the fully functional fountain they had just passed. There were even fresh flowers idly floating in the water. She didn’t even mention the marble statues, but she was waving at them.

“Tyrion is a flagrant rich boy, but I’m not one to judge. You should see the building he lives in.” He couldn’t stop the smirk from over coming his face even if he wanted to.

Brienne flushed and then crossed her arms petulantly as they stood waiting for the elevator.

“Anyways, what is this about your ‘old’ neighbourhood? Where the hell are you living now?”

Brienne flushed again, “None of your business.” Jaime raised an eyebrow at her and Brienne shifted her weight from foot to foot under the weight of his stare before she huffed in exasperation, “I gave my notice before the accident and my landlord had already found a new tenant. I’ve just been at the hospital.” With you, she didn’t say.

Jaime continued to stare at her as the elevator arrived, “But the nurses have managed to kick you out for at least a couple hours. So you must be living somewhere… right? You’re not… living on the streets are you?” They both stepped onto it.

“Jaime!” The doors closed.

“What? I remember what it was like being an undergrad!” Jaime chuckled.

“I’m staying at Catelyn’s,” Brienne grumbled.

Jaime stared at her dead panned, “You’re what?”

“I’m staying at Catelyn’s.”

“So I didn’t mishear you.”

“Why is that so bad?”

“Cat has three children Brienne… and one on the way, where the hell are you sleeping in that three bedroom house, there’s barely enough room for all the kids as it is.”

Brienne pursed her lips.

“You’re not…” Jaime groaned. Brienne somehow pursed her lips harder as she tried to avoid his gaze. “You’re sleeping on the couch with a broken arm and bruised ribs?” The elevator arrived at the top floor.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. It’s just until I find a place.” They stepped out of the elevator and Brienne’s eyes took in the apartment the elevator had opened out to, “The penthouse? You’re really showing me you’re not a flagrant rich boy.

But when Brienne looked back at Jaime he was already pulling out his phone. “I’m calling Tyrion.”

“What?”

“And by the end of today you’ll also have a fully functional fountain in your lobby too.”

“Jaime!” Brienne hissed as she tried to tackle him.

But he was already talking to Tyrion while skirting around one of his couches to dodge her wrath and waving at her as though it was she who was being crazy.

-///-///-///-

While Tyrion was several levels down showing Brienne her apartment for the next year and before the whole Stark brood descended upon them to deliver her things and hold an impromptu house warming party, Jaime pulled out his laptop and set it down on the kitchen table.

He slowly and carefully pulled out the chair with his injured hand, feeling that it was still in delicate condition, but knowing that he would be able to continue to pull out chairs for the rest of his life. Jaime sat down gingerly and put his wrists on the table. He opened the document containing his latest grant application. It was still just an outline meant to highlight the importance of knowing and understanding Blue the True’s journey between meeting the Kingslayer and Goldenhand the Just. He still had a lot of time to complete the grant, even with the accident, but as Jaime’s hands hovered over the keyboard, he wondered if he would ever be able to get it finished.

He had been wondering since the doctors had told him the state of his hand in the hospital.

Slowly his fingers touched the keys.

His brain raced with the information that he had gathered before the accident, but hadn’t yet transcribed to the document. His left hand raced along with his brain, but just as he had feared… his right barely moved at all, and when it did, only nonsense came out as he hit several keys at once or kept hitting the same key over and over again, his fingers quivering out of control.

Jaime swallowed as he pushed the laptop away from him and shoved the chair back. He walked over to his desk and pulled out a pad of notepaper with his right hand and then picked up a pencil.

Blue the True.

That was all he wanted to write.

Just Blue the True.

But his fingers just shook and shook as he tried to make the fine marks that would spell it out.

Blue the True.

Brienne the True.

Brienne Tarth.

Jaime dropped his pencil onto the paper and tried not to cry. Tried not to see his whole future falling apart right before his very eyes.

He couldn’t even write her damn name.

How could he possibly ever write anything again.

-///-///-///-

He noticed that Brienne kept on glancing at him all through the night. They were quick looks, slight tilts of her heads as though she were trying to see his face, worried eyes as though she somehow understood what was going through his mind.

After Tyrion and the Starks left his penthouse, a much bigger apartment, more conducive to parties than her new one, the smallest one in the building and the only one should had agreed to take, Brienne stayed.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said as she sat down beside him on the couch.

He sighed and rested his head on the back of the couch, “It’s nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me Jaime.”

He turned his head to regard her between his lashes and gave her a weak smile, “I’m just thinking about what I’m going to do with my life now. It’s a topic I haven’t had to think about for years.”

Brienne’s eyebrows furrowed, “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice echoing her genuine confusion.

He held up his right hand and smiled at her sadly, “I can’t type or write anymore. My life as an academic is over.”

Brienne’s eyes narrowed as she glared at his hand and then him, “You’re kidding, right?”

Jaime felt hurt. He almost wanted to snarl, but he didn’t want to snarl at her. He had learnt his lesson long ago. “I’m not.”

“You think that being an academic is about your ability to write and type?”

Jaime blinked and opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“What ever happened to the man who said, ‘I know everything about history’?” Brienne scowled and startled him by climbing fully onto the couch and shoving her face into his.

“Uh…” Jaime took in her burning eyes, “You set him on fire.”

Brienne’s eyes softened as he saw her recall that day nearly one and a half years ago. Gods, her eyes were still astonishing if not somehow more so. “I set him on fire and then I called him brilliant. Not brilliant because of his typing or writing skills, but brilliant because of his ideas, because of the detail and research that he put into his writing.”

“But to communicate those ideas, I need to be able to write, to type. It doesn’t matter if I’m brilliant if I can’t get my ideas out there. You thought I was brilliant because of things that I had written long before you met me.”

“Jaime, writing is just putting words to paper. Anyone can do that. Here, let me prove a point,” Brienne muttered as she stood up and walked over to one of the side desks where his laptop had been stored during the party. She looked at him and he nodded, then she opened the computer and sat back down beside him with it so that his left hand was beside her right hand. She balanced the laptop precariously on her lap and then placed her right hand on the keyboard. “Now cross your hand over mine.”

Jaime swallowed as he reached over her hand and placed the fingers of his left hand on the middle row. Their wrists touched.

“Now tell me what you want to write.”

“This is silly.”

“I’m trying to prove a point, now say something.”

“Blue the True is best known for her travels with the Kingslayer and then years later, her alliance and relationship with Goldenhand the Just,” as always, Jaime’s left hand raced over the letters on the keyboard, but unlike usual, his right hand flexed by his side. “However and despite her impactful narrative during these two segments of her life, the time she spends in the Riverlands in between is often overlooked and ignored,” Jaime couldn’t help but stare as Brienne’s right hand tapped away at the keyboard out of, but also in sync with his. “I argue, that we must close this narrative gap and rediscover the importance of the story of the Blue Knight. Bringing together this information will not only allow for us to have a better understanding of the Knight’s honour and the other parts of her life, but it will also aid us in fully comprehending the impact that she had during the War of the Five Kings and how those impacts outlasted the war and still resonate into the modern day.”

“Good start,” Brienne smiled and tried to pull her hand away.

Jaime caught her hand in his before he knew what he was doing. She looked up at him and he squeezed her hand, and then held it gently. Brienne nodded and interlaced their fingers before she turned the screen towards him, not at all questioning his trembling. The jumble of text on the screen was nearly illegible, with only the slightest clues as to what they had tried to transcribe, but she had gotten her point across. He squeezed her hand and his heart warmed. He turned to her. “I can hire a note taker and a typist.”

Brienne nodded and gave him a wide smile, “And continue to do what you do best.”

“Know everything?”

“Talk. Talk. Talk.”

-///-///-///-

He didn’t hire a typist or a note taker, not over the summer. Brienne had gotten her cast removed not three weeks later and she had given him zero chance and zero reason to find one. She would endlessly listen to him talk, talk, talk as they found resources and slowly put his grant together, her father sending her endless scans that Jaime would have never been able to source on such short notice on his own.

She was in his apartment nearly every day whether or not they were grant writing. Most of the afternoons it was with Sansa and Margaery in tow. They would pretend to be prim young ladies for about an hour each day before they would devolve into running about and causing a ruckus, but it was fun to have them there in the normally too big space and he didn’t mind having an admirer, although it seemed like Sansa’s crush on him had greatly died down.

When he had quietly asked one day if she still liked him, Sansa had huffed and told him belligerently, “Of course I still like you, Uncle Jaime. I just don’t like you, like you” which was obviously a blatant lie, but the whole six years of her was trying very hard, so it was rather adorable, “I don’t go for taken men.”

Jaime had stared at her in confusion, “I’m not taken though Sansa.”

She had eyed him like he was an idiot, “That’s what you think. Margaery is right. Boys are dumb.”

-///-///-///-

“Hit it! Just hit it!” Brienne shouted.

“Arg, stop yelling! There’s so much tension!”

“Click it! Just click the button!” Brienne cried as she playfully made a grab for Jaime’s mouse.

“I can’t!”

“Then I’ll do it! I can take anymore of this,” Brienne wailed as she tried to shoulder him off his chair.

“Stop it, stop it, I say. This is my right as a post-doc!”

Josmyn “Peck” Peckledon, Jaime’s hired professional typist and note taker, kept his head down beside the pair of them but Jaime could see his wide eyed stare into the void of incredulity. Really, the boy should be used to their antics by now. He had been around for a whole semester of it after all.

Brienne used Jaime’s distraction to grab the mouse and hit the submit button. Jaime gasped dramatically and put a hand to his heart, “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“You’ve been hemming and hawing over that submit button for the last hour.”

“All post-docs and professors hem and haw for at least two hours, Brienne,” Elia giggled as she rested her cheek in the palm of her hand and looked up from her own grant to smile at the duo.

“It’s within our right,” Mace agreed not taking his eyes from the screen as he frantically made edits.

“Well, I think we should go for celebration drinks and we can’t do that until you’ve all submitted your grants.”

Four pairs of eyes came down on Jaime. He held up his hands in mock surrender, “Hey! I wasn’t the one who said it!”

Ned shot his third espresso, “You’re the one who’s submitted.”

“I wasn’t even the one who submitted it!”

Lyanna growled, “You’re the one who’s done.”

Jaime smirked, “Well, I suppose—“

“Finish that sentence and I will tear you limb from limb Lannister!”

“Run before she eats you,” Elia mouthed and then winked.

“No one’s hating on Cat,” Jaime sulked and Brienne poked him in the cheek. He grabbed her hand and held it, shooting her a small smile, which she returned. She however, then continued to try and tickle his palm with her fingers, sending tingling sensations shooting up his arm.

“She’s on maternity leave. I don’t see you near popping,” Lyanna snarled.

Jaime held his free hand up again in defeat and turned towards Brienne and Peck, “Drinks?”

Peck looked between the two of them, his eyes flicking down to their interlocked hands, “With just you two?”

“Yeah,” Brienne smiled warmly pausing in her efforts to annoy Jaime, “Come along Peck.”

“Oh hell no! I mean uh… I uh…” Peck’s eyes shifted around frantically, “I have plans with Pia. Right, plans with Pia. I got to get to those plans with Pia. See you next week Dr. Lannister.” And with that Peck nearly sprinted out of the room before Brienne could give him her sad eyes and convince him to be the third wheel… again.

Elia burst into giggles and tried to hide it behind her hands while Lyanna rolled her eyes and Mace shook his head, tired, but amused, “Clever boy,” he mouthed to the siblings across from him.

“No one wants to swim alone through that blatant unresolved sexual tension,” Lyanna stated loudly.

“What sexual tension?” Jaime and Brienne asked in unison. They looked at each other and laughed, eyes warm. He wondered if Brienne truly didn’t know or if they were both playing this game.

Ned rubbed his temples, “Does he have common sense, or does he not have common sense… that is the question.”

“No need to be grumpy Ned,” Jaime snarked and Ned chucked one of his several empty paper espresso cups at Jaime’s head. Jaime chuckled as he dodged the projectile and tugged Brienne’s hand. He pulled her out of her seat as he stood. She followed easily enough, squeezing his right hand assuredly. Months had passed since the surgery, and it was as the doctor had foretold, he had never regained his fine motor skills, but as he gently squeezed Brienne’s hand back, he thought that it wasn’t so bad as long as he could still do this.

“We’ll get drinks again after all of you have submitted?” Brienne offered.

Elia was the only one who smiled while she nodded, even though the rest agreed and Mace tiredly replied, “Expect that to be on the evening of the last grant deadline.”

Brienne nodded as Jaime saluted his friends and dragged Brienne out the door. As the door shut behind him, Brienne’s hand escaped from his and she pulled on her winter jacket and stuffed her hands into her pockets to dig around for her mittens. They made it to the front of the building in a comfortable silence and saw that outside, snow was softly falling. “Do you have plans for Christmas?” Jaime asked as he held the door open for Brienne.

Brienne looked at him the way she always did when he did the most menial of gentlemanly things and shook her head as she stepped outside. “No, not really. My dad was going to visit, but storms on Tarth have grounded all flights until the new year, my friends and I are having a party a couple days before, and I’m going to the Stark’s New Years party… bar Catelyn giving birth, but otherwise I’m spending Christmas alone.” Jaime coughed slightly and Brienne looked over at him in concern. “Are you cold? Do you want my mittens?” she asked as she pulled her hands out of her pockets and handed him her rose coloured knitted gloves.

Jaime couldn’t help the warmth that spread right through him as they stood under the sparkling snow. He raised his right hand and caressed her scarred cheek, “What…” he swallowed nervously, “What do you say to not spending Christmas alone?”

Brienne’s eyes widened as her cheeks flushed, but still he could feel her gently gravitate towards his touch. “So you’re not cold?”

Jaime chuckled at her fondly, “Brienne.”

Her eyes sparkled. “What are you asking Jaime?”

“I’m asking if you want to spend Christmas with me.”

“Really?”

“Really. There’s no one else I’d rather spend it with.” And the moment he said it, he knew it was the truth.

Brienne bit her lower lip, “Are you sure?”

“I…” Jaime paused, “I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t sure.”

Another beat passed, and then another, and then Brienne cupped Jaime’s hand that was caressing her cheek, “Then there’s no where else that I’d rather be too.”

And Jaime thought that he hadn’t even suggested where they would go.

And then he realized that she meant with him.

-///-///-///-

They spent Christmas in the waiting room of the hospital taking care of Robb, Sansa, and Arya as Ned rushed in and out of the birthing room with reports of Catelyn’s condition. Sansa had situated herself on Jaime’s lap, her head resting on his shoulder as she drifted in and out of sleep while Arya flopped over Brienne’s lap in a position that could in no way by comfortable, but she hadn’t moved despite Brienne’s knees digging into her stomach. Robb and Jon pre-occupied each other and Lyanna was in charge of making sure that neither of them ran of through the halls of the hospital in a sleep deprived, hyperactive daze. Rhaegar had been put in charge of food and drinks as Catelyn approached her tenth hour of labour. Mace had come and gone with well wishes, but he had a large family to get back to celebrating the holidays with and Elia periodically called in from Dorne to ask for news.

“Do you think Santa came last night?” Sansa sniffled as she sleepily gazed up into Jaime’s face. She had already thrown her tantrum for the night, setting off Arya as well, but with soothing words from Brienne and a couple kisses to the crown of her head from Jaime, she had eventually quieted down. Arya had been harder to calm once she had started and it had only taken the combined monstrous patience of Lyanna and Brienne to out wait her tantrum. Lyanna had commiserated afterwards that although Jon seemed peaceable now, he had thrown tantrums at much the same temperament during his terrible twos. Arya, however, didn’t seem like she was ever going to convert to peaceable although Jaime expected she would be more like a lightning strike than a raging wildfire.

Jaime patted Sansa soothingly on the back, “I’m sure he did. When you get home there will be presents under the tree for all four of you.”

Sansa nodded and pressed her cheek back against Jaime’s sweater, although it was obvious that she was still sulking. Brienne smiled at him softly as she rubbed soothing circles on Arya’s back while the girl swung her arms and legs like a ragdoll draped over Brienne’s thighs.

“Not quite what we were planning for Christmas, is it?” Jaime teased as he leaned his head towards Brienne and rested his temple on her shoulder.

Brienne laughed under her breath and shook her head before nuzzling his hair with her cheek, “We’re spending it together, aren’t we?”

Jaime looked at her in wonder and their hands found each other, “That we are. That we are.”

-///-///-///-

“Catelyn! Please! Sit,” Brienne insisted as she once again found Catelyn fiddling with all of the snacks on the kitchen table with newborn Bran strapped to her chest in a sling.

Catelyn made the shooing motion with her hands and for some reason glared at Jaime who simply shrugged. He couldn’t control the fact that Brienne kept hovering around the kitchen watching Catelyn like a hawk. “I’ve been on bed rest long enough and before that I was barely allowed to move at all, please, let me do at least this.”

“I just don’t want you to push yourself too hard,” Brienne said.

Catelyn’s eyes softened, “Thank you Brienne, but I know what I’m doing.”

Brienne bit her lip, “Of course, sorry.”

“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that I just wish that you would go enjoy yourself. There are plenty of chairs in here and Ned will be right back. You don’t want to miss the count down, do you?”

Brienne flushed awkwardly and Jaime couldn’t help but notice how her eyes flickered over to him before they turned back to Catelyn, “Oh um… of course.”

Catelyn smiled at Brienne gently, but Jaime could see all the knowing that was in her expression. His heart beat so loudly he swore he could hear it. He resisted the urge to clutch at his chest. Ned walked in at that exact moment and when Brienne saw the look that passed between the married couple, she seemed to relax.

Jaime and Brienne exited the kitchen and walked into the living room where Sansa and Margaery, dressed in the matching snow fairy costumes they had received for Christmas, had climbed onto the coffee table and were waving their wands at some of the guests who were laughing and cooing in adoration. The living room was completely packed with not just friends of the Starks, but friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, and children galore. “Everybody must kiss somebody during the countdown!” Margaery preached as she stood on her soapbox.

Robb and Jon and their other friends never looked more disgusted in their lives. Jaime laughed as he remembered the cooties epidemic that struck fear into the hearts of boys that age.

Those already in relationships immediately acquiesced to Margaery’s decree and she shook in sheer delight.

“Everybody must find somebody,” Sansa declared, “Or we will find some for you!”

Brienne stepped up to Jaime and whispered in his ear, “Go on, make Sansa’s night,” she said.

Jaime regarded Brienne seriously, “And you?”

“I’ll take pity on Robb before Margaery corners him,” Brienne smiled.

Jaime laughed under his breath, “Alright then.”

He pushed his way through the crowd and found Sansa still waving her wand on the coffee table. To play up the moment, he knelt like a knight in front of her, “Hello Fairy Queen Sansa.”

Sansa’s Tully blue eyes shone, “Ser Jaime,” she squeaked delightedly.

“You said that everybody must find somebody, and it looks like I’ve found you.”

Sansa stared at him in surprise and confusion before she stood on the tips of her toes and looked over his shoulder. Her eyebrows pulled together and she swayed back to the flats of her feet and pouted at him, “I’m not the one you should be looking for.”

Jaime blinked in confusion.

Sansa waved her wand behind him and he turned just in time to see Brienne slip outside into the backyard, snow, and cold. His mouth dropped open as he looked over to where Robb was and it looked like Margaery already had him in her clutches and that he didn’t mind getting cooties all that much.

“You should go to her Ser Jaime,” Sansa murmured as she tapped him on the top of his head with her wand as though he were the foolish child, “Everybody must find somebody, but some people must find the one.”

He opened his mouth to reply, when one of Robb’s friends suddenly appeared at the table by Sansa’s feet. “Um,” he said shyly as he nervously wrung his hands. It was obvious that he had seen and heard nothing that had just happened, all of his nerve going into his next words, “My name is Theon, I’m Robb’s friend. You’re really pretty.”

Jaime smiled as he saw Sansa smile. She turned back to him and leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “Don’t worry Uncle Jaime, you’ll always be my first love,” the whole seven years of her said, and then she jumped off the table and took Theon’s hand, “Only on the forehead,” Jaime heard her say and Theon nodded, his cheeks blushing.

Jaime didn’t waste anymore time, as he got back on his feet and made his way to the door that he had seen Brienne escape through. He grabbed two jackets on his way out and walked out of doors himself. The cold hit him right away and he shivered, wondering how it was that Brienne was possibly outside in this weather without a jacket.

That was when he saw her, leaning against the railing of the deck, where she had brushed off some of the snow, her arms wrapped around herself and the moon reflecting in her eyes.

“You must be freezing,” he said as he placed one of the jackets, the warmest one, over her shoulders, and dragged the other one over his arms.

Brienne jolted and looked into his eyes, “I though you were…”

Jaime smiled, “She found someone.”

“Oh.”

“And it looks like so have I.”

“Jaime…”

“We’re out of Queen Margaery’s domain now,” Jaime said as he looked out at the cloudless sky, his breath coming out in white wisps, “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Brienne flushed as she looked away from him and at her hands, “It’s not about what I want to do.”

“And what is it that you want to do?” Jaime asked. Brienne tugged at the edges of the jacket and pulled it closer around herself. Jaime reached out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, “Brienne…”

She looked at him suddenly, “I think you know what,” she challenged.

Jaime regarded her gently, the tips of his fingers still curled behind her ear. His eyes scanned the planes of her face, the freckles, her nose, her eyes… her lips. His tongue darted out and wet his own and he saw her eyes flicker to his mouth before they returned to his eyes. “You’re cold, come here,” he murmured and slid his hand to the back of her neck and gently tugged her forward.

She fell against him, their bodies lining up perfectly as her hands curled into the front of his shirt. Her face was close, so close, the only part of them that wasn’t touching. “You always do that…” she whispered her eyes pining him through her iridescent lashes, “Warm me up.”

Jaime tilted his head ever so slightly and she tilted hers. Inside he could hear the muffled sounds of a countdown as he closed his eyes and thought about all of the kisses that would soon be happening. Innocent kisses on the hand, the cheek, the forehead; heated kisses between lovers; tentative kisses between strangers.

But here outside, there was just him and Brienne.

And then when the clock struck midnight and their lips touched, he found no words to describe the feel of it other than I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ve loved you for so long.

Chapter Text

The first rays of sun from the new year shone into his bedroom through the crack in the curtain. The snow outside made the rays of light dance and sparkle, though Jaime wondered how much of the magic in the air was purely from just him being unbearably happy. He let out a slow breath as he blinked his sleepy eyes and reached out to push some flaxen locks of hair out of Brienne’s sleeping face. She looked so calm, at peace in the morning light, and he adored her so.

They had gone home together after Catelyn’s New Years party and she had asked him if it was okay to spend a couple more hours together rather than for them to part at her floor. He had been more than happy to agree to her request and they had spent a large portion of the night in front of the fireplace cuddling and kissing and talking, as they always did, with drinks in their hands, one blanket shared between them, and a new understanding in the air. When it was time to go to bed, again instead of her leaving, she had shyly asked to stay and he would have had it no other way. Jaime remembered falling asleep holding her hand.

Suddenly Brienne’s nose twitched and her hand reached out across the bed in a state of restless sleep, swatting the covers. Jaime tried not to laugh as he wondered what she could possibly be looking for in her state of mostly delirium and then he smiled as he tried to imagine what kind of stuffed animal she probably slept with. Brienne kept on swatting, becoming more agitated by the second, when finally she whacked his hand and immediately calmed upon grabbing it. Jaime blinked in surprised as she gave a hard tug and cradled his arm to her chest, curling around the limb in her state of blissful slumber. Slowly interlacing her fingers with his over the span of several breaths, she then took a deep one and whispered long and low, “Jaime.”

After that he couldn’t help but curl up against her, holding her close, until she woke up.

She stirred less than an hour later and he held her closer. As she woke, she seemed to slowly realize where she was and her nose shyly buried itself into the crook of his shoulder. “Good morning,” he murmured as he traced patterns on the small of her back where the shirt she had borrowed from him to sleep in the previous night was riding up from a borrowed pair of sweatpants.

“Good morning,” she murmured back, shyly but also sure as she continued to hold his hand, “How long have you been awake for?”

“Not for long,” he replied.

She removed her face from his shoulder to look into his eyes, “Oh.”

His free hand swept up to brush her cheek, “Did you sleep well?”

She smiled softly at him, a light dusting of pink appearing on the apples of her cheeks, “I did, did you?”

Jaime nodded, “I did too.”

Brienne hummed and then her eyes flickered down to his lips. He couldn’t help but grin and Brienne immediately groaned, “You’re never going to shut up now are you?”

“I might.”

“Really?” Brienne raised an eyebrow, “I don’t believe you.”

“There might be methods you could easily employ going forward to shut me up.”

Brienne’s eyes had drifted to his lips but at his words they snapped back up to look into his eyes, “Forward?”

He swallowed nervously, “If you want.”

Brienne nodded and then flushed deeply. She let go of his hand, “I want,” she said and then covered her face in embarrassment, “If you want.”

“Of course I want Brienne.”

“So then we are…?”

He squeezed her hand, “Anything you want us to be, Brienne.”

She peeked through her fingers, “Partners?” she suggested tentatively.

He nodded emphatically.

“My boyfriend?” she squeaked shyly.

He grinned and tangled his other fingers into her hair.

She flushed the deepest red he had ever seen her blush, “…Lovers?”

Jaime groaned and tugged her to him. Between wet kisses, tongue, and teeth he said, “All of that. Everything.”

-///-///-///-

He would have bought her flowers, a bouquet to present to her when she opened her door when he picked her up for their first date, but that was the crux of it, he knew better than to do so and their first date didn’t feel at all like what a first date should feel like.

There was no timidity, awkward breaks in conversation, the desperate grapple for something, anything to say, the need to impress beyond sense and reason. No, there was none of that. It didn’t need to be done because they were beyond all of that, had never been like that.

So when he picked her up for their first date, instead of the nervous flutter at the door, Jaime thought one would normally have on a first date, there was just a serene sense that something special, something a long time coming, was about to start, like a piece was finally falling into place.

When Brienne opened her door dressed in her typical winter jacket, wearing her normal jeans, not an extra wink of make up on her face, but her face glowing with a smile brighter than the sun, all he wanted to do was sigh and say ah, there she is. Instead of speaking words though, as he was so wont to do, Jaime simply took a step forward, cupped her cheek, running a thumb over the scars long healed, and then kissed her chastely on the lips.

“Hello,” she murmured between his kisses as her eyes fluttered and she leaned into him.

He pulled away, “Hello,” he said. They stared at each other for a beat and then burst out laughing.

She stepped out of her apartment and closed the door behind her. “So where are we going?” she asked, taking his right hand.

“Do you trust me?”

“No.”

Jaime grinned as Brienne bumped her shoulder against his. “Fair enough,” he chuckled and kissed her again. He couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop.

“Jaime,” Brienne laughed by the tenth kiss, “We’re never going to get anywhere if you keep going like this.”

Jaime’s eyes softened. He thought for moment that he would be fine with never leaving the building, but he wanted to take her out on a date, wanted to hold her hand around town and argue with her about who would get to pay for tickets and food, wanted to have here to return to at the end of the night. “The observatory.”

Brienne’s eyes lit up, “That’s a ways out of the city.”

“Then we should get going,” Jaime smirked tugging her along as though he weren’t the one stalling.

Brienne squeezed his hand as they got back onto the elevator and rode it down to the parking garage. The whole entire trip, Jaime couldn’t help but pepper her face with kisses and Brienne shone, and smiled, and despite her words, simply trusted his affection for her.

The drive out to the observatory was long, but it still felt like it went by in a moment, as he and Brienne talked about the night, the stars, the history and significance of the heavens, and the red comet that had been archived in multiple sources to have cut and bled through the sky during the War of the Five Kings.

“Do you think it was a comet?” Jaime asked as he raced down the highway, lowering his high beams when ever he saw an incoming car.

Brienne shook her head, “No, it seems like it was in the sky for too long to be a comet. I suspect it was the death of a star. They happen so rarely that I’m sure any occurrence of them is linked with major events happening but are frequent and also noticeable enough across the whole continent, world, that you could also ‘foretell’ that another would come again.”

“The death of a star,” Jaime contemplated, “That kind of a theory could sway the academic community on the debate of who the Prince who was Promised was.”

“Or Princess.”

“Right, old languages.”

“Maybe it could be your next big project,” Brienne grinned.

Jaime chuckled, “Let me tackle Blue the True first. And then maybe learn more about star deaths. Which course did you learn about those in?”

“I took Historical Astronomical Phenomena last semester,” Brienne smiled, “Thought it would be fun considering the history of Tarth and all.”

“Right, Tarth was the seat of the Evenstar. What was it? What was it?” Jaime murmured, “Ah yes, your house motto. We Bring the Morning.” He thought of waking up next to her and thought that no better house words had ever been written.

Brienne hummed in agreement, “A lot of the course was over my head, but learning about how observations made millennia ago can now be identified for what they really were was amazingly cool.”

“You’re going to have to tell me more,” Jaime said as he turned off the highway and began to follow the signs towards the observatory.

“You want to hear about my course?” Brienne asked.

Jaime flickered his eyes over to her and smiled warmly as he drove across a small bridge, “I want to hear about everything.”

“Everything?”

Jaime turned into QI Observatory’s parking lot and found a spot. As he shifted gears, he turned his whole body towards her and nodded, “Everything.”

-///-///-///-

They sat in beanbags in the star room, after having seen all of the telescopes and read through the exhibits. Jaime was munching periodically on a handful of popcorn while Brienne pointed out constellations and recited the myths surrounding them. Jaime knew all of the myths, his mother had read them to him as a child, and then he had read them to Tyrion after, but hearing Brienne’s voice in the calm twinkling of the artificial night soothed him and brought forward dimensions to the stories that he had never been able to fathom before. Especially the stories in which the stars spoke of love.

“Jaime…” Brienne suddenly said, interrupting herself.

He turned to her, only having to fight with the beanbag a little, and set his popcorn down, “Hm?” She was already turned to him.

“I’m not staying in the Riverlands after I graduate,” Brienne whispered and reached her hand out to him.

He took it in his and brought her knuckles to his lips, “I know.”

Her eyes glistened, “You know?”

Jaime nodded, “After you said you didn’t want to do a PhD, I uh…” Jaime almost flushed, realizing how crazy he had acted at the idea of never seeing her again.

But Brienne smiled at him, “But you still kissed me anyways.”

Jaime tilted his head in confusion, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“We’re going to be separated in just four more months Jaime.”

He squeezed her hand, “Separated isn’t the same as… not together.”

Brienne sucked in a breath and took a moment to regard him. Her eyes fluttered shut, and when they opened again they shone with such brilliance, “I’ll message you every day,” she whispered as she shifted closer to him.

Jaime brushed back her hair and gently cradled the base of her skull, moving forward until their foreheads touched, “And I’ll call you everyday.”

Brienne laughed, “There’s no need to one up me.”

Jaime chuckled, “If I didn’t try I wouldn’t be me.”

Brienne’s fingers traced his cheek, “You wouldn’t be you.”

-///-///-///-

Jaime paused in the middle of making dinner as a thought occurred to him. He looked up and pursed his lips as he tried to remember the last time that Brienne had gone back to her own apartment, “Brienne?”

“Hm?” she asked from the other kitchen counter where she was preparing their dessert with meticulous care, dressed only in one of his shirts and her underwear.

“When did you move in?” Jaime asked as he flicked off the stove and turned around.

Brienne looked up at him with an amused smile, her eyes appreciating that he was only dressed in a pair of boxer briefs, “Officially? About two weeks ago.”

“Did I…” Jaime tilted his head back and forth as he tried to recall some of the things he had said as they had lain naked and satiated, cuddling in bed together in the after glow, “Ask you to move in?”

Brienne straightened up and flushed a little, “Not in so many words, but you kept kidnapping my stuff.”

“Hm…”

Brienne bit her bottom lip, “Is that okay? Tyrion said he needed my apartment and since I will be gone soon…”

Jaime waved his hand at her, “Of course it’s okay, gives you zero reason to sleep in a different bed from me from now until then,” he said as he circled the counter and came up behind her, “Not that I should ever give you a reason.” He hugged her around the waist and nuzzled into her neck and Brienne hummed in happiness. “You’re not paying rent though… right?”

Brienne pursed her lips again and flushed.

Jaime huffed and held her tighter, “I’m going to kill Tyrion. You don’t need to pay rent.”

“Well of course I should pay my half of the rent!” Brienne cried as Jaime nibbled on her neck in reprimand. “Jaime!”

“You don’t need to pay rent.”

“Well there’s no way you can prevent it.”

Jaime smirked, “Is that a challenge, Brienne?” He nipped harder at her skin and she shivered at his touch.

Brienne pouted as she turned in his arms, “Is it really okay that I’ve moved in?”

“Well considering I was going to ask you to move in tonight, yes. I want to spend every moment we have, before you move back, together. I’m glad that you were ahead of me in that regard,” Jaime grinned as he kissed her, “But my offer was going to be with the condition that you don’t pay rent.”

“Compromise,” Brienne replied as she melted into him.

“A compromise is not you getting your way,” Jaime chuckled and ran his hands up and down her back the way he knew she liked. Her eyes darkened and he pressed her closer to the counter. “Brienne.”

“Hm?” she murmured and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. He turned into her gentle touch and took her left hand in his right.

“I love you,” he said. It almost felt redundant since he had known this truth for so long, but he realized it was the first time he had said it out loud. It was so different having his feelings out there, and he determined right then and there that he would have to say it more.

Brienne startled and looked into his eyes, her blues shining with the same feelings that had just been on his lips. “Jaime?”

He smoothed her hair behind her ear, “You know that right?”

Brienne flushed a bright red and her eyes dropped before they looked back up at him, “Is it silly and childish to say that I felt it in our first kiss?”

Jaime shook his head, “I felt it too. That was a long time coming.”

Brienne squeezed his right hand, “You know I love you too, right?”

Jaime grinned and kissed her again, thinking that they could leave dinner for a bit later, “I told you. I felt it too.”

Brienne sighed as they stumbled towards their bedroom, “Good.”

-///-///-///-

It had only been a month since Brienne had graduated and returned to Tarth. As promised, she had messaged him every single day and he had called her as often as he could. Brienne, being Brienne, had been the first to video call him and when he saw her face, he hadn’t been able to help the warmth that radiated through him.

Right now though, he was merely on the phone with her.

“How was your training with your dad today?” Jaime asked as he scanned the intersection for the appropriate road sign, deciding to continue straight when he didn’t see what he wanted to see. It was annoying driving without his navigation on, but he hated it when it interrupted his conversations with Brienne.

Brienne sighed, “Hard, we’ve finally moved past the filing system and how new resources should be added to the archive to actually handling the documents.”

Jaime laughed, “Did you even handle a single document?”

“No,” Brienne whined emphatically, “It was a whole day about when it was and wasn’t necessary to wear certain pieces of equipment and how to put that equipment on and how to take it off. Tomorrow I get to pretend to handle some old documents.”

“Pretend?” Jaime found the intersection he was looking for and turned his steering wheel to the right. His destination loomed ahead and he breathed out a sigh of relief. Brienne completely understood why he couldn’t have his full attention on her while he was driving and that was why his answers were often curt instead of his usual long winded nonsense, but it greatly irked him when he couldn’t put his full attention on her.

“As in move around some very not old documents. I asked my dad if I could use your publications as my practice.”

“The Kingslayer to Goldenhand one?”

He could almost hear Brienne smile as he pulled into the parking lot, “All of them. There’s a section of the archive dedicated solely to your works.”

Jaime pulled into parking lot, “Did you really make a Dr. Jaime Lannister category?”

Brienne laughed, “No… well yes… there’s two of each of your works here, okay? One set is categorized properly…”

“The other?” he asked as he put his car into park.

Brienne was silent for a moment before she said shyly, “The other is in my office.”

Jaime couldn’t help but laugh as he got out of his car and switched off the speakerphone, “Can that really be considered part of the archive?”

“Well if anyone walks in here asking to see Dr. Jaime Lannister’s works, I can bring them to my office,” Brienne replied petulantly, “So yes!”

“I’m sure that’s going to be a terribly frequent occurrence,” Jaime smirked, fiddling with his keys.

“Pompous, arrogant, conceited—“

“I’m sorry Brienne, I’ve reached my destination, so I’ve got to go.”

“Oh wait! Don’t let me leave it there,” Brienne cried out, “I love you.”

Jaime smiled as he locked his car, “I love you too.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you most.”

“Liar.”

Jaime grinned. He knew it was corny and it made all of his friends gag, but he didn’t care, “Never.”

“Talk to you again soon?”

“Very soon.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

And with that Brienne hung up the phone.

Jaime pocketed his keys and walked up the steps to the old stone building and pushed open the grand oak doors.

Inside, an older man greeted him. “Welcome.”

“I’m Dr. Jaime Lannister here from—“

“Oh. I know who you are.”

Jaime smiled, “Then you know what I’m here for?”

“Come this way Professor Lannister.”

“Jaime, please.”

The older man smiled at him, “Jaime. Of course.” They walked down the hallways, arches of stone and glass on either side. And then the man stopped in front of a door, “You’ll find what you’re looking for in here. I hope we’ll find a chance to get to know each other better very soon.” The man’s voice was sure, even if his language was polite.

“I’m sure we will.”

The man nodded and smiled widely, “I would just walk right in.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” And with that the man walked away and in that action Jaime felt a fondness and trust like no other.

He turned the doorknob and opened the door.

Inside was a messy room with a wide oak desk and book shelves lining all of the walls.

Jaime walked up to the desk and tapped the wood.

A squeak came from the backroom, “Oh! By the Seven, I wasn’t expecting anybody. I’ll just be a moment. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Jaime smiled as he walked towards the backroom, “I was told that this is where I would be able to find a collection of all of Dr. Jaime Lannister’s publications?” he said just as he crossed the threshold.

A mighty crash sounded as Brienne whirled towards him, the box in her hand dropping to the floor and scattering its thankfully indelicate contents around her.

“Jaime?”

He held out his hand and tried not to smile too hard, “I’m Dr. Jaime Lannister, the new Associate Professor in the history department at the University of Storm’s End, Tarth campus.”

Brienne’s mouth gaped open as her eyes watered.

And Jaime continued even though he gave up on the handshake and simply opened his arms, “We’ll be working very closely for the foreseeable future, Miss Brienne Tarth. I plan to be here for a very long time.”

Brienne rushed into his embrace and buried her face into his shoulder, still at a loss for words, but he knew them all the same.

Jaime nuzzled her temple and held her close, “If you want, I’ll be here indefinitely.”